The Guardian's Playlist

by J Powell Ogden

  At that point, the numbers on the page of my math text refused to cooperate at all. I gave up and closed the book, turned to a clean page in my notebook and began doodling aimlessly. Of course the name Michael Casey flowed out of my pencil. I circled it a few times. I chewed on the end of my pencil and tapped the name. What happened to you? Where have you been? I remembered that the snake incident wasn’t the only well-meaning thing he’d done that went disastrously wrong. He was always skirting rules to make us laugh only to be bitten by unexpected consequences. But smoking? Tattoos? Getting kicked out of school? It didn’t line up with the way I remembered him. He’d always been so funny, so sweet.

  The only thing that matched were his eyes.

  The conversation during the bus ride home with Meri, Grace and Cici focused solely on Michael. I’d hoped he’d be on the bus, but he wasn’t. Instead, my friends and I laughed about the pranks he’d pulled on Sister Patricia after she’d refused to let him bring his snake back to school. We guessed at the reason he’d moved away, hoping the rumor about foster care was wrong. I was completely caught up in the mystery when my sisters and I walked in the door at home.

  My mom was in the kitchen, talking on the phone with an open suitcase on the table in front of her.

  “The doctors say she’s stable, Julia. I’m leaving now. The girls just walked in.” She paused, and said, “I know. I wish they were here, too. I’ll call you when I get there, okay?” She hung up the phone and leaned over the table for a moment before looking up into our worried faces.

  “Is it Mina?” Claire asked.

  My mom nodded. “They just took her to the hospital in an ambulance.”

  Cici circled the table and put her arms around her.

  “It will be okay,” I offered, not knowing what else to say.

  “I know, sure. It’s not like we didn’t see this coming.” She stood up a little straighter. “Claire, I want you to order some pizza for dinner. There’s money on the counter. I already called your dad, but he’s at a training seminar this weekend and can’t get back until Sunday afternoon.”

  She looked each of us in the eye. “I am banking on the fact that at least one of you will tell if the others step out of line. You know the house rules. No boys in the house.” She looked pointedly at Claire, who rolled her eyes and shifted uncomfortably.

  Then she looked at me. “And Claire, please make sure Catherine takes her medicine.”

  “Mom…” I began, but decided she didn’t need to hear it today.

  “Okay, well that’s that. It’s six hours to Bluefield. I’ll take the van so you girls can have the Honda.” She zipped up her suitcase and walked out the door with us following behind. She hugged each of us, got in the car, and pulled out of the driveway. The last thing we heard was, “…and don’t forget to feed the cats!” Then she was gone.

  “Guys, I have to get to cross country practice,” Claire said. “You can order the pizza, right?”

  “Oh, please,” I groaned.

  “Just checking, okay? I’ll be home around eight. Maybe you guys could invite a few friends over to watch a movie?”

  I said, “Sure.”

  When Claire was gone, I turned to Cici. “Text everyone! Party at the Forsythes!” Her eyes went wide with shock. “Just kidding. Meri’s going out with Finn tonight, but I’ll call Grace and see if she wants to come over and watch the Ghost Hunters Marathon on the Syfy channel. Do you want to call someone?”

  “No, Lisa and I are going to a movie,” she said. In a small voice, she asked, “Do you think Mina will be all right?” I knew Mina was a tough lady; she’d been cutting her own grass up until last summer.

  “Yeah. This is just one of those setbacks you have when you have lung problems.” I knew about those setbacks, having suffered through them myself, but I pushed those thoughts away. I’d been pretty healthy since I’d started a new regimen of asthma medication, and I didn’t want to dwell on the past.

  “She’ll be fine, you’ll see,” I promised. “Now, we better order that pizza so you can eat before you go.”

  After Cici left, my phone buzzed with a text from Meri.

  MERI: Guess whats on my finger???

  ME: he did not!

  MERI: lol! no stupid! its a claddagh ring!

  ME: & thats not…?

  MERI: Its an irish thing! U know, heart, hands, crown, like a promise ring? We started going out exactly 1 yr ago?

  ME: oh congrats!

  MERI: gtg. call u tomorrow!

  Thinking about her ring triggered a faint memory. It tugged patiently for a moment. Then a vivid picture formed in my head, and I raced barefoot up the threadbare stairs to my room and pulled my old jewelry box off the top shelf of my closet.

  It was covered in dust fluff, and the hinges were broken. I placed it carefully on the bed, lifted the lid and was surprised to see Princess Belle in her gold mesh skirt start to twirl. The first few notes of “Beauty and the Beast” began to play, teasing my ears with ghostly echoes of things long past. I felt the hair on the back of my neck prickle. Then the little princess and the music stopped.

  Inside was a tangle of tarnished necklaces, a friendship bracelet, and a couple of unpaired earrings. I tossed those aside and dug a little deeper, and there, at the bottom of the pile, I found what I’d been looking for. I held it up and grinned. It was one of those fake gold rings you get from a gumball machine, and it had a blue plastic gem glued to the front. I couldn’t believe I still had it. I flopped back on my bed, pulled Pigwin into my arms, and became lost in the past again.

  Outside on a parking lot, wearing my pink denim jacket, I was trying to keep my plaid skirt from flipping up in the breeze. Meri was jumping rope, and I was counting for her. She stopped to look at something over my shoulder, and I turned around to see Michael standing behind me with his hands stuffed in the pockets of his windbreaker. He was looking down at the blacktop and scuffing his feet.

  “Hey, Catherine. Merideth,” he said.

  “Hi, Michael,” I said back.

  “Um, Catherine, I wanted to thank you for saving Fang’s life yesterday. I mean he probably would have been a snake pancake if you hadn’t helped me.”

  I beamed with pleasure.

  “Well, I brought you something to thank you, because I owe Fang’s life to you and all.” He stretched out his arm and opened his hand. Resting on his palm was a perfect gold ring. I picked it up and turned it over in the sunlight. It was carved into a tiny pair of gold hands holding a sparkling, heart-shaped blue stone with a dainty gold crown on top.

  “Wow, Michael, it’s beautiful!”

  “Try it on,” he suggested, grinning. I put it on one of my fingers, but it was too big, so I tried it on my thumb. It was still too big. I thought for a minute and then had an idea.

  “Here, help me with this clasp.” I pulled the silver chain I was wearing out from under my shirt and twisted the clasp around to the front. Michael helped me undo the clasp, and then I slid the ring onto the chain. The chain already had one ring on it, and the new ring fell down to rest against it with a little clinking sound.

  “Hey, what’s that ring?” he asked, reaching out and turning it around to see it better.

  “I got it when I was baptized.” I held the two rings up side by side. His ring outshone my scuffed silver ring in every way. My ring was a simple silver band that widened into a flat oval in front. In the middle of the oval, a script letter “C” was inscribed and on the inside was a cross surrounded by a hash-marked circle. I turned his gold ring around and around, admiring how the facets in the sky blue stone caught the light.

  “Thanks, Michael, it’s really pretty,” I said, feeling special.

  “Well, my friends are waiting for me to play football. Maybe you can come over some time and see Fang?” His eyes brimmed with hope.

  “Maybe,” I said back. He nodded and sprinted to the grassy area on the other side of the parking lot.

  Later that day, I was sitting at the kitche
n table, coloring in a Cinderella coloring book, twisting the gold ring back and forth on the chain, when my mom bent over to see my picture.

  “Nice job, Catherine. Cinderella looks very pretty.” She started to stand back up when an afternoon sunbeam caught on the facets of the ring. The reflected light danced across the table.

  “Let me see that, Catherine,” she said, looking more closely at Michael’s ring. She looked inside. “Hope springs eternal,” she read. “Honey, I think this is a very special ring. I need to have it, please.”

  “No! Michael gave it to me, Mommy! It was a gift!”

  “I don’t think Michael’s mommy knew he was giving it to you. I’m sure it’s very important to her, and she wouldn’t want him to give it away.” But I didn’t understand, and I pulled it back from her.

  “Please give me the ring,” she said gently, but firmly. I allowed her to unclasp the chain and take it off, leaving my old silver ring alone. I picked my ring up and held it next to the gold one. “See? It’s so much prettier!”

  “Catherine, your ring is very special, too. Mina gave it to you with God’s blessing at your baptism, and it should remind you of how much God and your family love you.”

  I really tried to be happy with that explanation, but a tear rolled down my cheek as my mom called Michael’s mother to tell her we would be right over to return it.

  Michael lived in a small house in the neighborhood behind the school. My mom knocked on the door and a slender woman with reddish hair answered. She smiled when she saw me and bent down to shake my hand saying, “Thank you so much for returning my ring to me. Michael’s daddy gave it to me.”

  Behind her I could see Michael. He looked embarrassed, so I called out, “It’s okay, Michael! I understand. Mommy explained it to me.”

  He gave me a shy grin. My mom asked if I could come in to see Fang, and Michael nodded, grabbed my hand and led me up to his room.

  The next day at school, he cornered me in the coatroom.

  “Hold out your hand and close your eyes,” he said. He was really excited about something. So I did, and he placed something light and small on my palm. When I opened my eyes, I saw another ring, but this time I could tell it was the kind you got out of a gumball machine. I had a few just like it at home.

  “I had to chop off the stone it came with, and then I glued this blue one on. My mom has lots of beads and stuff like that at home,” he explained.

  “Thanks! It’s pretty, too.” I felt special knowing he made it for me. But then I asked worriedly whether his mom knew about the blue plastic jewel. He grinned.

  “Sure, she helped me!”

  As the unnaturally vivid memory faded, I found myself grabbing at fragments of it, wanting to stay enfolded within its happy glow. I turned the little ring over on my palm, admiring it all over again. I pulled up the silver chain from around my neck and held the gumball treasure up next to my lusterless silver ring. Even the little plastic gem had more sparkle than my ring, but I was older now, and I cherished my silver ring for the love it represented.

  “Michael, we have so much to talk about,” I murmured. My thoughts turned again to his disappearance at the end of second grade. After I gave the Claddagh back, we became friends, and I often went over to his house to play. There was a small creek behind his home, and we spent many afternoons looking under rocks for snails that autumn and sliding on the ice in the winter. We fell into a rhythm of play that often required no talking at all, and when we did talk, we frequently finished each other’s sentences. In school, we were inseparable. If I had to sit out of gym because my asthma was acting up, he always found some stupid reason to sit out with me—a hang nail, an achy foot, blurry vision—and in the classroom, I’d read with him, which he seemed to like.

  After Christmas that year, Michael started missing school. When he did come, he frequently forgot things, like his lunch or homework. By late spring, I wasn’t allowed over to his house anymore. Looking back, it was obvious something must have happened at home, something that eventually landed him in foster care if the rumor was true. No one ever told me why I couldn’t see my friend anymore.

  My thoughts were interrupted by the buzzing of my cell phone. Grace was texting that she was downstairs at the door.

  “B RIGHT DWN!” I texted back and then dropped the little ring and the rest of my ancient treasures back in my jewelry box. I shoved the box onto the top shelf of my closet and bounded down the stairs to meet her.

  I woke up late Saturday morning to the smell of coffee brewing in the kitchen. As I headed down the hall to the bathroom we all shared, I heard Claire’s voice—short, anxious phrases. She was talking to someone on the phone.

  “Cici,” I called. “You better come downstairs.” When I entered the kitchen, I heard the zip of a fly being closed and caught sight of Claire’s “ex” boyfriend—the one she was forbidden to see after he ran over our mailbox one night when he was too drunk to stop—adjust his waistband and plow out the back door. My jaw dropped, but I ignored that situation for the moment and focused on the phone call.

  “Is she upset?” Claire asked, gripping her phone tightly. She paused, then said, “When will you be back? Is she coming with you?”

  Cici and I gave each other a worried look. There was another pause. Then Claire asked, “What can we do?” She finished by telling Mom we loved her and hung up.

  “What’s happened? Is Mina alright?” asked Cici.

  Claire was more pale than usual. “She’s okay, but she can’t go home. She needs someone to take care of her.”

  “That’s terrible!” I cried, placing my palms on the table. “She’s so independent. She must be really upset.”

  “She is.”

  “Where will she go? A nursing home? She’ll hate that. Mom will hate that!”

  There was a pause, and then Claire said, “Cate, she’s not going to a nursing home. After a few weeks in rehab, she’s coming here.”

  I had to sit down in a kitchen chair and digest that. Of course, she’d come here. That was the right thing to do. My mom loved her. We loved her. She didn’t belong in a nursing home far away with strangers taking care of her. Then I thought of our small house and our one full bathroom, and my mind made the next leap.

  “Where will we put her?”

  Claire sat down in the chair next to me. “She’ll take my room, and I’ll move down to the basement.” I thought about that for a moment, and then my selfish side kicked in.

  “Why you?”

  “Cate, the basement only has the sofa bed, and Mom thought it would be easier to move just one of us.” She knew what I was thinking. I was thinking of the flat screen TV in the basement, the partial kitchen, and the half bath. I couldn’t help feeling jealous. A part of me thought it wasn’t fair, that this whole situation wasn’t fair, but I squeezed those feelings down, knowing them to be selfish and nodded.

  “Is she going to die, Claire?” whispered Cici.

  I loved Mina and knew intellectually she would die someday, but realizing she was one step closer with no hope of going back was a reality I wasn’t ready to face. Would she be dying here? I shook my head reflexively at Cici while a knot grew in the pit of my stomach.

  “Hopefully, not anytime soon,” Claire said. There was nothing left to say, so Cici and I went back upstairs to get dressed. Up in my room my selfish and benevolent sides warred with each other, and an undefined fear egged them both on. I needed to get a grip before Mom got back from Bluefield. I needed to go somewhere quiet and alone and just think for a while. I knew the perfect place.

  FOUR

  THE LEFT PATH

  IT WAS AFTER one o’clock when I reached into my closet and grabbed the pink canvas tote Meri made for me. On one side she’d painted a stained glass butterfly bursting from a watercolor heart. On the other, she’d written in a confident flourish, “Let Your Heart Wing It.” I stuffed my ancient iPod mini, headphones, cell phone, and inhaler into the tote and then paused with my hand above the
spotting scope, which was perched on my dresser. It was heavy and bulky, and I usually only brought it on my club’s wildlife hikes. I hesitated, undecided, and then dumped it into the bag with the rest of my gear. I loosely braided my blonde frizz, and put on a pair of jean shorts, a ribbed tank top, and my hiking boots. After lacing up the boots, I scooped up my bag and loped down the stairs.

  In the kitchen, Claire had just finished lacing up her running shoes and was applying sunscreen to her face.

  “Claire? Will you drop me at Lewis Woods this afternoon?” I pulled a package of trail mix and a bottle of water out of the pantry and tossed them into my bag.

  “What’s at Lewis Woods? More trees to hug?”

  Just breathe. Nasty comebacks won’t get you to Lewis Woods. I took a deep breath. “I’m going to meet some friends there to hike and do research for a club meeting.” It wasn’t exactly a lie. I was sure I would see some “friends,” though I was thinking more of the four-legged or feathered variety, and I considered any hike to be research.

  “I don’t know, Cate. I don’t want to be late for cross country practice.”

  “Please? I’ll pay to fill the car with gas,” I offered, dangling what I knew to be an irresistible carrot.

  Claire hesitated before relenting. “Okay, but I can’t come get you until after practice ends at five. If you want to come home before that you'll have to get a ride from one of your friends.”

  A choked laugh escaped my lips at the idea of one of my furry friends giving me a ride home. “No problem.”